Purpose of Music videos

A Music video is a short piece of film incorporating a song and imagery. They are
used for promotional purposes in other words to advertise the artist and to
create an image for themselves.
Music videos were first established in the 1920s. Many music videos were
produced. For example Waner Bros produced some that that featured Vocalists,
bands and dancers. Shortly after on the 1930s screen songs emerged, they
were sing along songs illustrated with short cartoons, the person who introduced
this was an animator called Max Fletcher. They did this by having a bouncing ball
go over the lyrics at the bottom. In the 1960s Promo videos started being
produced for rock bands like the Beatles and the rolling stones. For example the
rolling stones released two promo clips for their single Have you seen your
mother, baby, standing in the shadow .As things started to progress on Michael
Jackson came into the music industry and produced the music video thriller
which had a variety of dancers included and a larger budget. The Music video
Thriller bust out into the millions after been shown on the new platform MTV
which launched only 3 years before. Now in the music industry special effects,
props, professional break dancers and much more is used to create a music
video, For example when Firework by Katy Perry came out in 2010 (30 years after
Thriller) she had special effects used such as the fireworks coming out her chest.
This was still shown on the same platform MTV and overall she got over 670
million views for that one song. Mtv has built a name for its self as its one of the
biggest platform that promotes Music artists. Its televised on Sky, Virgin Media,
BT, Freeware, Talk TV, plus net and more.
YouTube is another outlet that helps get artists recognised. For example PSY
released a music video Gangnam style which obtained more than a billion views
with in the first months of its release. PSY was not a well-known beforehand and
only had his fan base in Korea however everything changed for him and he
suddenly became a global star and still to this current date his music video has
the most views.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psy

Above are the results I got in my Survey.

People said in the surveys that music videos are there to gain more publicity for
the artist and that they promote an image for the person. This works for various
artist like Justin Bieber as the music video advertises his looks to attract his
audience making people want buy his albums. Even his album cover shows a
picture of himself half naked in black and white making his promotion to the
females stronger.
Some of the questions were about how the image of Justin Bieber has changed
significantly over the past few years. He was once a young fourteen year old
singing R&B artist starting through YouTube and then became a global star that
attracted youths from many parts of the world in 2009 .Now 7 years later music
videos has changed his appearance to a global sex icon attracting an much
slightly older audiences. Instead of being a pop artist produced by Usher, now he
has songs which feature the Electronic Artist Skrillex in the music video for
where are you now. His songs are now starting to be played in clubs and are
attract more of a male audience. . I asked people why it was that Justin Bieber
changed his image and song. The answers I received was that he did it to expand
his fan base through catching the eye of the male audience through his music.
However his image is still been promoted to attract the female audience through
the style of his music videos.
I asked people what Outlets publicized the music videos and the responses I
received averaged with YouTube, Vevo and Mtv. Vevo has a channel on YouTube
which they use as an outlet for the music videos that famous artists produce and
the same media is put onto their own Vevo website. Having more outlets is
better as it exposes the music video to a larger audience. Some people said that
MTV was the best way to promote the artist. I think this would be because Mtv is
a Freeview channel meaning that anyone with a television can access the
channel. Furthermore MTV is one of the most popular channels that plays music
videos in stores and barbershops.
One of the main sources of income for the artist is advertising. This is done on
most outlets like Mtv, Youtube,Vevo and even Spotify. A company claims that
they get 0.0049(0.49p) per play for their content on Spotify and that the same
applies to all. Based on these rates this means Adele would of made 1,837,000
just for the big hit Hello on Spotify. On YouTube advertising generates a large
amount money for the artist. The amount of time that an advert is played, is

what generates the income. Currently on the Adele song Hello the
advertisements dont allow you to skip and the advert on there is 17 seconds
long. A source online showed that for 26,807 minutes watched the ad earnings
were $395.28. From this information this means that the billion views of the song
Hello would of generated 2,899,281. A portion of this would be for the outlet
( Youtube owned by Google however the majority would to the artist. In modern
day the source of income through selling albums in shops has decreased over
the years while increasing though advertising. Another source of income is
though branding. Dr Dre beats are often featured in a number of music videos.
Such as Niki Minajs Music video Pills and potions. Beats have a speaker called
the Beats Pill and in relation to the song you have the a Beats Pill XL portable
speaker fall alongside a few purple tablets. The casual shaped speaker floats
down as Minaj sings the chorus Pills and potions, were over dosing..
Adele was promoted through the James Bond film Sky fall. She made the song
especially for the film, for the theme song. The song took 18 months to
complete, it took this long as they wanted to make sure they were getting it
right. Work paid off as the song won an Academy Award for the Best Original
Song and a Grammy award for the best song written for Visual Media. After
Skyfall was released in cinemas all over America the song saw sales which
increased by 66%. This shows how the synergy with the film and the song
worked so well. The song increased cinema sales and the film increase the songs
sales.
Major record companies are typically multinational companies meaning their
headquarters may be placed in different areas in world. Label like London, Island
and Polydor sign artists that they think will attract large audiences and leave a
good impression on the major label company itself. Music Videos produced with a
major label will have larger budgets and they will be shot at a high standard with
expensive lighting and props. The Income that these larger budget music videos
generate are generally a lot higher because of this and also the fact that these
Major Labels have well known mainstream artists. They can also be promoted in
various ways and have other famous people featured to boost up the views.
However if the music video isn't promoted well then they can easily make a loss
due to their high budgets. Another disadvantage is that the Artists are less free
to make what they want as the standards are so high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMvN45sjo4
Example of a video produced by a major label record company
Independent record labels have much lower budgets therefore the technical
quality of the music video is affected. The independent record label companies
are tied with less well known artists therefore the views and income is less also.
Even though the artists are not well known some can sing at a professional level
and have the appearance, this is what Major companies look for and its really
hard to be noticed when your record company is so small. Also with independent
record companies artists can be freer as their fan base is much smaller so there
is less pressure.
Self-produced artist are funded by themselves the camera and audio quality is

mostly low. The promote themselves therefore they get not many views at all
and not a lot of views. However they can produce what they want and they are
as free as they want to be.
Sources
http://videopower.org/how-many-views-to-make-money-on-youtube/
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-nicki-minaj-videopills-n-potions-beats-20140610-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_label
https://www.surveymonkey.com/analyze/2X0fe2Mblufxsme_2FrUMzmzV
QKypnt_2BHjNMcHdKquxrA_3D
Music videos are made to promote an artist or an album and the music videos
that are made can be shown through different styles to embrace the audience
and grab their attention.
Some artists promote their music videos through showing a concert live. An
example of an artist that does this is Netsky. He did this for a song Everyday
which he remixed. The music video shows a live DJ set of the song with flashing
lights and the crowd dancing to the music. The Music video gives the people an
allusion that they are there at there at the gig and listening to the music with the
other people in the crowd of the song. This promotes the song while also
promoting his live gigs that he put on as it shows the audience having a good
time.
Kayne west promoted his music video using a green screen. A green screen
allows you to be as creative as you want as you can illustrate any image you
want on the background. The song that Kanye West used the screen for was
Bound Two. He had many vibrant backgrounds with him singing in front of them,
and linking with the songs name Bound 2,it is him travelling the world with Kim
Kardashian on the bike expressing their love. Kim was half naked in the video
which promoted the video furthermore as she is a global sex icon. Green screen
isnt often used along with animation however a band that often uses animation
for their music videos would be The Gorillaz. They used an animation music
video for the song Clint Eastwood. An animation for this music video suited it
as there were many metaphoric meaning in the song shown my certain events in
the song like the tomb stones shooting at the ground.
Interperative music videos are ones that dont really make sense and the music
doesnt nessesarily match up with the video. The Music video Blue Jay Way by
the beatles is an example for an interperative music video as the illistations
shown didnt match up to what the song was about howver it left the audience
thinking that it had a deeper meaning. This gained publicity as people would
come up with conspiricys which as the sametime promoted the video.
Another example would be Katy Perrys Music video for the song Firework. The
videos starts off with here on a balcony singong out to the night and then fire
works are ignighted out of her chest, the audience watching are left clueless to
what this means some people may think its Katy standing out and not being
ashamed of who she is.

Micheal Jacksons Thriller is famous narritive music video as it follows a linear

narritive. The video starts off with two people on a date wtaching a horror film in
the cinema, further into the song the song illistrates their journey in a Zombie
filled night as Micheal Jackson performs his soliloquy. The song starts with the
line Its close to midnight and something evils lurking in the dark the way he
sings this line is in the way like hes starting to tell the story (the start of the
linear narritive). At the very end of the song there is an ending were Micheal
Jackson turns to the camera to reveal that he was a zombie all along by showing
his face as a zombie.
Impressionist music videos are sometimes used to make the viewer feel a
specific way and the shots included in the music video will seem random and
unrelated to convey the themes of the music video. Although artist still make
some of the shots line up with the lyrics. They sometimes include abstract
objects, people or a shot of a certain location. Most of the time there will be a
certain theme of synergy which will link the unrelated shots together. Jay Z did
this in his music video On to the next one using synergy in the way of three. In
shots you see a domino with three dots and a shot showing three bullets. The
way that this was relevant was because it links in with the name of the artist in
his complete album called Blueprint 3.
Surreal music videos have either no story with random shots of unrelated things
to lyrics or the song or they do relate to story and have unrealistic shots that are
typically animation. Madonnas song Like a Prayer is surreal as she includes
shots of her kissing a saint shots of her floating in heaven. A surreal song that
relates to the lyrics but still has obscured shots is Tribute By Tenacious D. The
song features them over powering a devil through the power of rock.

A pastiche music video is one that is in a parody for (recreated) however it is

more for the reason to credit the style, Artist, director. The way they recreate it is
by changing the lyrics but keeping the content of the video extremely similar. For
Lady Gaga released a music video Alejandro which had intensive white colours
contrasting deep dark blacks and camera shots featured lots of close ups. This
was closely related to the style of Madonnas music videoVouge and Lady Gaga
recreated her style many years later to give credibility to Madonna. Other
reasons may be for that Madonna was her idol in Lady Gagas younger years and
it was to show how she looks up to her taking her Madonnas footsteps.
Parody videos are a replacer of another music video and they copy or exaggerate
the style of the music video theyre copying from. For example Bart Baker a
YouTube star remade the music video What Do You Mean by changing the lyrics
into something amusing and a terrible auto tune voice playing over the same
Melody from the original. In the video he exaggerates the length of Justin
Biebers blonde hair and pulls a squinted posing face to exaggerate the fact that
Justin Bieber is vein all the time and wanting to look good.
Homage music videos are used to show tribute to something in the past. For
example 2 pacs song Ghetto Gospel is a video seen as tribute to Tupac Shakur,
the song was released years after his death and it includes an actor playing the
part of Tupac. Overall a tribute towards the artist as his legend and music is from
the past. The music video is to acknowledge his death and at the end of the

music video there is a quote which says remember to keep yourself alive, there
is nothing more important than that- Afeni Shakur mother of 2pac
The music Video Gold digger uses the influence of commercials due to the fact
the video includes women posing as if they were in the 1980s on the front page.
The video features performances shots of Kanye combined with footage of
models from vintage Magazines. The titles of the magazine link with song as they
correlate to the lyrics that Kanye rap such as the lyric Smoke and the title
shown below.

Techniques
Some of the opinions that my peers expressed for
the music video technique cutting to the beat was
that it was effective due to the fact it makes the
video more relevant to the melody and makes the
video more pleasant to watch. An example that I
can relate to would be the song Hardest Button to
Button by The White Stipes. I felt captive to watch
more of the song when I song how interesting the
cutting to the beat effect was. Throughout the video
I kept on wanting to watch more because as each
instrument was added, (for instance the guitar) it
cut to the beat also. There was a general positive
response with special effects being used in music videos. I
ask if what they thought about Artists using special effects in their music videos
and they thought that when they are used in the right way it can be one of the
most successful tools in music videos because you can immerse the audience
into another place/location and other unrealistic scenarios. They specified where
they thought special effects were done really with the song California Girls by
Katy Perry where there where girls up in the clouds (unrealistic location) however
he thought it was very engaging and entertaining.

Another question I asked was if lip syncing was effective in music videos, I found
that its not preferred by everyone as you would go to see them live to see this
and I presume they thought theyd would rather want something more
interesting like special effects used in a music video or a story being told. My
peers thought that camera movement was an important in music videos because
if you shoot slow camera movement for a fast up beat song it wouldnt captivate
the audience as well as it could do. It would be better to have fast tracking shots
matching the fast tempo to make the viewership a better experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwpphM7u5aQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HNgIqKDC4Q
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Jay_Way
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillaz
http://www.sparkytimes.com/archives/44291/sunshine-in-a-bag-vs-the-beat-themeaning-of-clint-eastwood-by-gorillaz/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwNcNOTVzY#t=174